The present invention relates to a monitoring network system including: a plurality of patient monitoring apparatuses, such as blood pressure monitors, electrocardiogram monitors, bedside monitors, etc. connected to and acquiring biological signals from acquisition units, such as blood pressure sensors, electrocardiogram sensors, etc., that acquire the biological signals from a patient; a central monitor or other remote monitoring apparatus, displaying the biological signals on a display unit; and a network, connecting the patient monitoring apparatuses and the remote monitoring apparatus.
A related-art system is known with which a biological signal is transmitted from a monitor, disposed at a bedside and connected to an acquisition unit acquiring the biological signal from a patient, and a waveform display is performed, in accordance with the biological signal, on a video display screen disposed at a central station (see paragraph 0002 of JP-A-07-163527). Here, the biological signal displayed by the central station is transmitted from a monitor assigned in advance at the central station side (see paragraphs 0002 and 0003 of JP-A-04-266739).
There is also known a related-art system configured so that a biological signal of a patient being transported is collected to a centralized monitoring apparatus via a network to monitor the biological signal of the patient without interruption during the transport (see JP-A-2000-23925, especially paragraphs 0008 and 0009).
Furthermore, a related-art apparatus, carried by a patient and collecting a biological signal of the patient to perform seamless monitoring without interruption, has been developed (refer to “PCP apparatus” disclosed in JP-A-2004-536636).
However, with the related-art system disclosed in JP-A-04-266739, only a patient monitoring apparatus that has been selected in advance can be monitored. The related-art system disclosed in JP-A-2000-23925 is limited to performing seamless monitoring aiming at consolidated management of information, and in a case where all patient monitoring apparatuses are monitored, the centralized monitoring apparatus performing consolidated management is required to be extremely high in performance. Also the related-art system disclosed in JP-A-2004-536636 is premised on a patient using a specific measuring apparatus and does not accommodate for a case where the measuring apparatus itself is changed to a bedside monitor, etc., for the patient.
Thus when a patient is moved to another bed and measurements are to be made by another bedside monitor or other patient monitoring apparatus or when a patient is moved to an operating room and subject to surgery, unless a hospital ward or an attending physician in charge of caring for the patient re-assigns the appropriate patient monitoring apparatus with respect to the central monitor or other remote monitoring apparatus, the biological signal of the patient cannot be displayed in continuation. There was thus an issue that during the re-assigns process, patient monitoring is interrupted and the required monitoring cannot be performed. This is because a large number of monitors are present within a hospital and it is extremely difficult for medical staff to specify and input into the system which patient is being measured by which patient monitoring apparatus at a destination of patient movement.